Qualla: Ironton, Ohio

Ironton, Ohio: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vasiliymeshko, CC BY 4.0. John Campbell was a pig iron manufacturer with a problem and a plan. The problem was getting his iron to markets that would pay for it. The plan was to build a city on the Ohio River where his furnaces could load directly onto barges. He founded Ironton in 1849 - a contraction of "iron town," exactly that direct - and within a decade his city was supplying iron to England, France, and Russia for the warships they were building. American iron from Ironton was used in the USS Monitor, the country's first ironclad. The same Ohio River wharves that loaded Campbell's iron also unloaded another kind of cargo: enslaved people crossing from Kentucky to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Campbell himself sheltered them in his house.

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Image: Vasiliymeshko | CC BY 4.0

Ironton, Ohio: Forty Years of Iron

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wvfunnyman, CC BY-SA 3.0. Between 1850 and 1890, Ironton was one of the world's leading producers of iron. The furnace landscape around the city - the Hanging Rock Iron Region that stretched south into Kentucky - had the right combination of ore, limestone for flux, and hardwood for charcoal. European nav...

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Image: Wvfunnyman | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ironton, Ohio: Nannie Kelly Wright and the Underground Railroad

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vasiliymeshko, CC BY 4.0. Ironton sits directly across the Ohio from Kentucky, which made it a destination for enslaved people seeking freedom in the North. John Campbell and other city leaders sheltered freedom seekers in their homes during the most dangerous portions of their journeys. The work was ille...

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Image: Vasiliymeshko | CC BY 4.0

Ironton, Ohio: The Tanks and the Thanksgiving Game

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit aw135093, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Ironton Tanks formed in 1919 and ran as one of the first professional football teams in the United States until 1930. In 1920 they played a game the day after Thanksgiving against the Lombards, their crosstown rival, winning 26-0. In 1922 they beat the Huntington Boosters 12-...

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Image: aw135093 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ironton, Ohio: The Floods and the Decline

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wayne National Forest, CC BY 2.0. Two floods bracketed Ironton's industrial peak. The 1917 flood damaged the city seriously. The 1937 flood, coming during the Great Depression, devastated it. Industries that were already struggling with the national shift from iron to steel could not recover. The Norfolk and West...

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Image: Wayne National Forest | CC BY 2.0

Ironton, Ohio: The Oldest Memorial Day Parade

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vasiliymeshko, CC BY 4.0. Founded in 1868, the Ironton-Lawrence County Memorial Day Parade is the oldest continuously running Memorial Day parade in the United States - older than the federal holiday itself, which was not officially named Memorial Day until much later. Every year since the end of the Civi...

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Image: Vasiliymeshko | CC BY 4.0